Typically, online publishers, such as online media companies and other publishers of articles, stories, and other electronic content, provide online web page space and mechanisms for viewers to comment on, or otherwise interact with, that published content.
Some articles attract many comments, including sometimes too many for one person to browse through all of those comments. In addition, some comments form a conversation, replying to one another, and some conversations are worth noting, and actually helping to invite more user interactions. The prevalent way to present comments is in order of recency (more recent comments on the top), sometimes causing other interesting/insightful comments to disappear. Because of how comments are typically displayed in sequential order and in un-nested conversations, it can be difficult for readers to identify important or interesting comments or conversations. For example, an important person such as the author or a pundit may comment on an article, and that comment may spur many additional comments, including comments by popular, demographically-significant, or otherwise important people. Due to the standard sequencing of comments, those comments or conversations may be too far down a chain of comments to appear within a reasonable distance from the original content.